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Singer Ileana Santamaría wrote a poem that she then brought to musician Raffi Dimoian to produce a an intimate spoken word piece imagining Eve’s response to Adam from Genesis 2:21-24 for Spark & Echo Arts' Bible Illumination Project.
ARTIST STATEMENT
This piece, “Eve’s song”, came about as a response to Genesis 2:21-24 and to the beautiful idea of a helpmeet* – Ezer in the Ancient Hebrew, a helper suitable for man, a companion on this Earth that was given first to him and then to her and their progeny. In a way, it was also a response to the deeply moving response to the same passage conceived by Spark and Echo Band in their first album. Titled “Flesh”, that work – in itself Adam’s response to this wondrous creature made from and for him, marked by an exuberant, childlike joy and excitement in showing her around the garden and declaring giddily, ‘I was waiting, I was waiting for you’, made quite an impression on me. Recently I was reminded of that fascination with the idea of Eve after reading a blurb from Christian author Gary Thomas’ book Cherish, in which he espouses the notion of Eve being the only woman on Earth as a guideline for men struggling with temptation, calling on them to cherish their wives (hence the title) as the sole woman on Earth, the precious gem crafted for and given especially to them. The seedling of an idea was thus born and lay dormant in me until recently, namely, that of responding to this Scripture by assuming Eve’s voice as she responds to Adam about her calling from and to his side and their calling together.
It is our hope and prayer that “Eve’s song” will capture something that will speak to and, in keeping with the spirit and the objective of this wonderful Spark and Echo Arts project, illuminate some aspect of the person of Eve, who and what she was made to be before the Fall, beyond the infamous fruit of the tree she is perennially associated with. The piece aims to tie in that destiny “redeemed, restored”, as one line reads, into the redemption of our humanity in Jesus Christ, and in particular, of the aspect of woman as partner – a femininity that goes way beyond one-dimensional stereotypes back to its true roots in gentle yet fiercely loving strength and capacity to love and serve and to follow our Lord together with man through the hardships of this life.
* helpmeet, help·mate
ˈhelpˌmāt/Submit
a helpful companion or partner, especially one’s husband or wife.
Origin: late 17th century (as helpmeet ): from an erroneous reading of Gen. 2:18, 20, where Adam’s future wife is described as “an help meet for him” (i.e., a suitable helper for him). The variant helpmate came into use in the early 18th century.
- Genre
- Spoken Word